San Clemente Island – Team Dana Point Jet Ski

As Ken and I head down to the landing, the anticipation is killing us.  With kayaks in the back of the truck bed and our tackle, consisting of 7” and 8” MC swim baits  and weedless jigs, our hope is that we will be putting big Calico bass in our kayaks all day. Our journey begins on our sponsored 2.5 day trip with Dana Point Jet Ski aboard the beautiful Islander. This trip was a true VIP trip with only 10 anglers on board who were all looking to put that fish of a lifetime in their kayak. After the low down from the captain we were on our way to San Clemente Island.  We were told that we would be fishing the backside of the island.  I had never fished the backside, I had only heard stories of the big calicos and crazy structure that we would get to play in with our Hobie Revolutions.

Day one for me was a crazy one.  I loaded with four rods in my boat and I decided to get right on the hunt for the calico of a lifetime.  Ken and I headed straight for the intense boiler rocks of the island with crazy swells and crashing waves.  I stood back to make my move to get close enough to cast my 7’’ weedless bait coated with unibutter. As I was working my bait back to the boat I was trying to multi-task keeping my eye on the swell behind me and trying to stay a safe distance from the boiler rock.  Soon, I got rocked by a big bass.  I set the hook and begin to wind, fighting him to the boat.  At one point he spits it, only for him to return right at the boat. The combination of the last violent bite and the swell put my kayak upside down and me in the water, At all my seminars I always teach anglers to dress to swim and rig to flip.  Thankfully, I took my own advice and I only lost one rod and I managed to fight this fish in the water and landed him.  After Ken helped me back on my boat we were on our way to put more Clemente Calico bass in our boats.

The island has a forest of kelp beds.  We love to target these areas with weedless jigs tipped with Berkley gulp curly tail grubs. As we were fishing these heavy kelp areas, we found that the sheephead were taking our baits along with dozens of Calico bass. Bass after bass, our hands begin to take a beating from holding all these beautiful bass.  Our days consisted of us fishing boilers, potholing kelp beds and fishing kelp stringers with big baits. We ended our 2.5 days with well over 100 calicos with over half of them being legal and most in the 6lb range. I have to say we had a blast with the fist class service of the Islander, with gourmet dinners, confortable beds and VIP service.  It made our days go so smooth.  On these trips the crew does everything for you, from putting your boat in the water to bringing you a cold drink on the water. They even brought tackle from my bag to me on the water, keeping me from making the trip back to the boat.

We had a killer group of anglers on this trip and I enjoyed all of them.  If you haven’t been on a mothership trip before you need to contact Tim at Dana Point Jet Ski and get on the next one.  It will change your life.